# RO: So what were you doing while your 13 month old son was alone in the tub drowning to death? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 20, 2011, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342 "2011-01-20T16:49:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/61 "2011-01-21T17:42:20Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > [Archie Bunker]Would you feel better if they was thrown out of windas?[/Archie Bunker] I believe a “little goil” belongs after the word ‘better’. mmm ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/62 "2011-01-21T18:02:04Z")
> [@Kevbo](#): > > I am told that in the mid-60s I wandered off as a toddler and was found down by the irrigation canal. This in spite of the fact that my mom was hyper-paranoid because TWO of my cousins (out of like 30) had drowned. Apparently, prior to social media, mothers had to resort to doing stuff like cooking, cleaning, laundry, gardening and slipping off to speakeasies to neglect their kids. Yeah, I was literally on a leash after that. A policeman once found my brother, who was a young child at the time, naked in the street pretending to direct traffic in front of my parent’s house. And my mom was one of those good moms who made sure she was always there when we got home from school and never left us alone in the house. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/63 "2011-01-21T18:38:15Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Remember kids: only mothers can bathe children. That’s how we do it. I’m too busy playing CityVille. ---
**Author:** ![Precambrianmollusc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/precambrianmollusc/32/63_2.png) [@Precambrianmollusc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Precambrianmollusc)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/64 "2011-01-21T18:49:53Z")
> [@Giraffe](#): > > Yet another reason why babies, from a design point of view, are crappy. From a design point of view they are excellent, if you consider the ridiculous size and flexibility constrainst handed down from Marketing. They tried to justify it with some crap about how the customer wouldn’t accept anything more rigid and waffled on about delivery windows. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/65 "2011-01-21T20:12:54Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > … a moron, a bathtub, and a laptop. Poll! “A Moron, A Bathtub, and A Laptop” is: (A) A great name for a rock band (B) The beginning of a really good “Great Carnac” joke (C) The eighth, unpublished, Narnia novel (D) All of these ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/66 "2011-01-21T20:13:51Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Poll! “A Moron, A Bathtub, and A Laptop” is: > > (A) A great name for a rock band > (B) The beginning of a really good “Great Carnac” joke > (C) The eighth, unpublished, Narnia novel > (D) All of these E) a really bad attempt at a palindrome. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/67 "2011-01-21T21:20:04Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > (C) The eighth, unpublished, Narnia novel Yes. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/68 "2011-01-21T22:15:19Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > The sink is re-used for cleaning things you eat off of. If the sponge isn’t also re-used for cleaning things you eat off of, it isn’t analogous and there was no point to bringing it up. Then why did you feel the need to add “dish” to “sponge” when it wasn’t there in the first place? We have sponges in the general area of our kitchen sink that have never seen a dish and never will. Likewise for the sponge in the bathroom. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/69 "2011-01-21T22:32:57Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Poll! “A Moron, A Bathtub, and A Laptop” is: > > (B) The beginning of a really good “Great Carnac” joke What are a Doper, a soaper, and a screen for a porn stroker? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/70 "2011-01-21T23:55:18Z")
Okay, people, can we have a little perspective here? She was playing Cafe World, not Farmville. Totally different. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/71 "2011-01-22T00:56:19Z")
I hope that when they arrested her, they gave her time to update her Facebook Status to “Imprisoned”. And her son’s Status to “Dead”. ---
**Author:** ![Meyer6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@Meyer6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meyer6)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/72 "2011-01-22T01:48:15Z")
I really like this part of the article: > [@](#): > > Johnson told police she had left the boy in the tub before, saying he was an independent baby and that he wanted to be left alone How, exactly, can you tell that a 13 month old baby wants to be left alone? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/73 "2011-01-22T01:49:57Z")
When it pushes you away after you hit it a few times? ---
**Author:** ![Sodalite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@Sodalite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sodalite)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/74 "2011-01-22T02:10:24Z")
Meh, skip the whole Facebook thing. This should not have happened. The child had a seizure sometime in the weeks before and the idiot woman’s mother had warned not to leave him alone in the tub anymore. If you read the whole article it mentions that leaving him in there by himself was a regular thing for her. Normally I don’t really care about RO type things but this incident does kind of irritate me. I understand the lack of interest in other drowning cases. Most of them are just accidents. Shit happens. A good parent can be momentarily distracted by all manner of things. The poor kid in this story didn’t have a good parent. This was just really freaking stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/75 "2011-01-22T02:35:28Z")
I once forgot a baby in the back seat of my Mario Kart. Good thing the windows were open. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/76 "2011-01-22T04:10:56Z")
> [@Meyer6](#): > > How, exactly, can you tell that a 13 month old baby wants to be left alone? It goes camping. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/77 "2011-01-22T04:13:59Z")
Now I’m picturing the baby telling his mom, in a Greta Garbo accent - _I just vant to be left alone._ ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/78 "2011-01-22T09:43:14Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > (Although now I kind of wonder if there are any kids who are exclusively sponge-bathed in infancy and early childhood, and how well that would work for hygiene.) In my family, my generation (born 1967-1976) got only sponge baths until we could sit on our own and move around (not just stay seated if plopped down); at that point we moved to being bathed in the kitchen sink or on a kitchen-sink-sized plastic bassin until we got too large for it (at that point, we were almost big enough to get into and out of the tub on our own). My nephews have gotten bathed in the bathtub with the bathing parent outside since infancy, which looks terribly uncomfortable and insecure to me: I can see getting into the tub with the baby, but they way these two do it, Daddy gets a sore back within seconds. Instead of holding the kid with one arm and using the faucet and sponge with the other in a standing position, he’d have to do all kind of pretzeling himself in order to keep hold of the kid while grabbing the “telephone” showerhead and then tossing around blindly to get the soap and sponge. ---
**Author:** ![xoferew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/e9a140/32.png) [@xoferew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xoferew)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/79 "2011-01-22T13:43:12Z")
There’s a life-saving product here just waiting to be invented. Maybe like a giant colander with a spring in a double-boiler kind of set up? The baby is suspended in the colander above the baby tub full of warm water which is placed in a regular bathtub. When an adult exerts downward pressure the colander goes down into the baby bath, and when no pressure is being exerted the baby remains up, like a dead-man’s brake on a train. Except, wait, if the adult lets go suddenly the baby would be catapulted out of the colander… Okay, maybe if the adult simply watched the kid in the tub! ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342/80 "2011-01-22T14:03:14Z")
> [@neuroman](#): > > Had to love this user comment on the newspaper article: > > “I wonder if Farmville has a prison.” There was some article similar to this that specifically mentioned Farmville. I don’t think it’s the same person, though, as I seem to remember the person being Korean. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-so-what-were-you-doing-while-your-13-month-old-son-was-alone-in-the-tub-drowning-to-death/568342.md?page=5)